Richard Nelson's Regular Singing, Final Work in The Apple Family Plays, Opens at the Public Nov. 22

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22 Nov 2013

Laila Robins, Sally Murphy and Maryann Plunkett

Photo by Joan Marcus

Regular Singing, the final work in Tony Award winner Richard Nelson's politically anchored four-play series about a liberal American family, officially opens Nov. 22. The play opens on the day in which it is set, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Presented as part of Nelson's Apple Family Plays, Regular Singing began previews Nov. 16. Each play in the series has opened on the date on which it is set. The repertory engagement of The Apple Family Plays: Scenes from Life in the Country will continue through Dec. 15.

The three preceding plays, That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad and Sorry, premiered at the Public in recent seasons. Each play is tethered to a moment in American politics.

According to the Public, "The compelling plays are about family, politics, change, and the way we live today. They resonate with remarkable immediacy and relevance. Each of these plays originally premiered on the night on which it is set. In The Hopey Changey Thing, the Apples reflect on the state of their family and discuss memory, manners and politics as polls close on mid-term election night 2010 and a groundswell of conservative sentiment flips Congress on its head. In Sweet and Sad, a family brunch stirs up discussions of loss, remembrance and a decade of change. And Sorry, which premiered last fall, finds the Apples sorting through family anxieties and confusion on the day of electing the President."

Nelson is the Tony Award-winning playwright/adaptor of James Joyce's The Dead. His works also include Two Shakespearean Actors, Farewell to the Theatre, Conversations in Tusculum, as well as Nikolai and the Others. He wrote the book and lyrics and directed the musical My Life with Albertine and also penned the book for the musical Chess.

For tickets and further information phone (212) 967-7555 or visit PublicTheater.